The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to communications in a machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless wide area network (WAN). Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, sensor data, tracking data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple devices. In some examples, these devices may be sensors and/or meters configured to collect data and transmit this data to an end server via a base station. These sensors and/or meters may be referred to as M2M devices. Base stations may communicate with M2M devices on forward and reverse links. Each base station has a coverage range, which may be referred to as the coverage area of the cell. An M2M device may transmit data to a base station on the reverse link.
The channels used by M2M devices to transmit data to the base station on the reverse link may be random access channels. A device may select a channel and attempt to transmit their data. If the channel is not available, it may result in a collision. The device may select a different channel and use additional energy and power to attempt to transmit its data again. This process causes a delay in the transmission of the data on the reverse link. In addition, valuable power and resources of the M2M devices are wasted as they attempt to identify an available channel through a rudimentary trial and error process.